You know what it turns out is really fun? Throwing baby showers!
What? I’m serious. Hear me out.
First of all, it turns out baby showers are very American.
As with all US-related holidays, I enjoy a certain, heightened patriotism when I get to celebrate overseas and fabricate embellish upon the importance of various customs. Like celebrating the 4th of July in New Zealand, when I convinced all the Kiwi’s we had to wear towel capes and salute each other each time we spoke. (In my defense I was 22, and everybody was totally into the towel capes. I think.)
Anyway, it turns out that people in other countries (or at least in Spain) don’t have baby showers! I don’t know where they get their $6,000 Maclaren strollers or their Melissa and Doug hand-carved, vegetable-dye-painted maraca’s. I guess they just buy them at the mercado or something?
Spanish people sort of know about baby showers, because they see them in American movies, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to even explain the idea.
I can tell you from experience “Ducha de bebés” doesn’t translate well.
So, because I love hosting parties and weird Spanish language challenges (see related post here) it turns out expat baby showers are right in my wheelhouse.
Foolproof plan for throwing baby showers below:
One: “Borrow” work-based Cricut machine to indulge my new favorite hobby: making large wall banners!
Two: Write several bossy authoritarian e-mails inquiring about a variety of baby pictures.
Three: Create fun baby shower games! We played “Guess Who? Baby Edition”, a game I made up entirely at work in my free time in the days before the shower. Pro tip: you can play any game you want and just call it “Baby Edition”. For example: Pictionary, Cards Against Humanity, Never-Have-I-Ever…anything!
Four: Make large frittata. And larger pitcher of mimosas for maximum frittata enjoyment.
Five: Balloons! As many as possible. I maxed out at fifteen but with some creativity and a portable helium tank, the sky is the limit.
Instant baby shower.
The best part?
Well, the very best part of course is we got to celebrate someone having a baby! That isn’t me!! Great news all around. Congrats Meg and Raul, you are going to be such a great parents!! And Baby Fernandez-Perks is going to look amazing in her Notre Dame tutu!! But the second best part–Baby showers are all girls. So, before the guests had left the party my apartment was spotless, my dishwasher was running and my wrapping paper recycling had been securely boxed up for later removal. What a day! Picture of my fabulous friends (and Cricut sign) below.
